Customers

In a world where customers are used to getting everything they need immediately, chatbots have already become a vital part of our daily lives. From paying utility bills to getting financial advice regarding important investments to interacting with favorite brands without browsing their websites — chatbots are at the vanguard of round-the-clock online customer service. 

This level of superior customer service can not only result in customer retention but also overall profitability. Satisfied customers tend to stay associated with a company and even expand their investment, refer others, and – generally – agree to pay premiums rather than switching to a brand with whom they’re neither familiar nor comfortable. Both customer support chatbot and IT support chatbots bank on this phenomenon to boost a company’s sales and market performance via user experiences.

While older versions of chatbots relied on identifying keywords and solving only static, repetitive queries – modern chatbots improve customer service by a lot more. Advanced conversational AI support bots can now contextually converse with the user, creating an enriched, personalized, and compelling experience. They are designed to understand the intent behind a user’s messages and even identify emotions. This has made it possible for chatbots to go from being just an additional support accessory to a powerful business tool that directly corresponds with end-customers across various touchpoints including web, mobile, WhatsApp, email, and virtual home assistants like Alexa. 

The modern way to support customers

Traditional customer support services are plagued with issues like technical inconsistencies, inefficient practices, and sometimes, human error. These have given rise to customer complaints such as –

• Difficulties in communicating with agents from offshore call centers
• Lengthy wait and hold times
• Repetitive call transfers
• Never-ending automated self-service menus 

Many of these issues can now be addressed with the help of conversational AI. This is of vital importance given the physical distancing norms imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Incorporating AI-powered personal assistants across customer touchpoints can ensure a seamless service delivery even with support centers operating at limited capacity.  

Gartner claimed long back that 25% of customer service and support operations would integrate chatbots across engagement channels by 2020. However, little was it expected that the adoption rate would grow so phenomenally. Today, experts forecast that over 53% of service organizations will adopt chatbots by the end of 2020, and these numbers are only increasing as the need for social distancing grows. In the new normal of the business landscape, augmented automation and remote workplaces are a testament to this growth. That said, the ultimate goal of chatbots in customer service is very fundamental—providing customers with instant and accurate responses.

Automate routine requests and outbound notifications to prioritize the things that matter

So how can chatbots improve customer service? What are the chatbot use cases applicable to business operations? Well, let’s begin with simple numbers. Advanced, well-trained chatbots can accurately and instantly respond to 80% of routine customer service questions. Their popularity has been soaring as the number of chatbot use cases increase day-by-day, and the millennials populate the customer base. 55% of respondents of a survey said that they want chatbots involved in the customer service process. And with chatbots becoming a critical stakeholder in the customer service game, repetitive questions become less of a hassle for human agents. Without the need to handle routine requests and send timely alerts/payment reminders/follow-ups, human agents can focus predominantly on handling complex problems effectively. Some popular chatbot uses include-

This is the era of conversational customer services

From automated messages to visual search, chatbots empower companies to better support customer needs along their journey.

• Personalized experience: Chatbots can leverage conversation and transaction history of customers to provide hyper-personalized suggestions and interactive experiences. 
• Instant gratification: Customer queries are responded to or redirected almost immediately, making them reliable during times of emergencies. According to a survey, over 37% of people prefer customer service bots during emergencies. The efficiency achieved by having a chatbot in place can cut the average handling time of queries by 50% and reduce support costs by over 30%.
• 24/7 conversational support: With chatbots in place, customer service teams can provide not merely round-the-clock customer support, but also ensure high quality and consistency of responses. This ultimately leads to customer satisfaction and a reduction in the volume of repeat calls by as much as 40%.
• Preference pattern recognition: Chatbot conversations have proven useful in gathering information from users and understanding a preference pattern. These insights can augment user data collected during their shopping and transactions. This allows the chatbots to provide intuitive suggestions. 
• Omnichannel integration: By integrating conversational AI, organizations can help customers get consistent responses across different channels, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, e-mail, website, and mobile apps. Further, this also ensures better conversation continuity, thereby reducing the need for customers to repeat their queries over and over. 
• Self-learning and building of databases: AI, in combination with machine learning, can teach itself and build databases on-top of the training data. It can learn, understand, improvise, and execute with a continually growing library of data. 

Tailor new connections with chatbots

The apparent benefits that customer support chatbots bring to the table cannot be overestimated. By responding to most standard questions, conversational chatbots reduce overall costs and expedite response time. Owing to the faster and more accurate responses, organizations can benefit from lower customer bounce rate and increased retention.

By proactively educating customers with targeted messaging, preemptively answering their questions, and providing visual tours, they reduce the support volume and improve customer experiences across several customer-facing industries. 
Expand your audience outreach, boost your brand image, and augment customer satisfaction with zero-coding chatbot platforms. Reduce the training period and time-to-launch of your chatbot with pre-trained industry models that require minimal information input!

In this recent era of dramatic changes, creating a strategic focus for your business is more important than ever before.

This is because an unfaltering focus on CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) provides the right foundation that companies need to enjoy everlasting success and business growth.
Now, looking at customer acquisition and relationship through the lens of quantitative and analytical science, CLV constitutes of an ultimate virtuous cycle, which is much like the one that helped Jeff Bezos create Amazon into a powerhouse of market innovations that we see today.

Therefore here are a few ways you can optimize CLV in 2019 for also for the years to come:

Get wired for customer journeys, not just transactions

Businesses and brands that provide the best experience to their consumers throughout the customer journey achieve much higher levels of sales, retention and customer satisfaction, than companies that only focus on ameliorating transactional touch-points, as suggested by research conducted by McKinsey & Company.

This implies a brand may be losing customers in spite of its individual teams getting higher customer service ratings.

In the research conducted by McKinsey & Company it was also found that this often happens when customers view their overall experience with a brand unsatisfactory or frustrating and so when and if this happens businesses need to reexamine the entire customer journey, locate the root cause and across different functional areas and eliminate silos to achieve solution to this issue.

Hence if your business is committed to improving customer experience, it is imperative that your company must buy CRM or any other business growth technology and tools that are capable of predicting advanced journey analytics to better perceive customer behaviors and motivations across touch-points over time.

This is because once your business finds better insights and visibility across the entire customer lifecycle (right from marketing to sales and service) it will allow your business to demolish the walls between internal silos and ease the greatest pain points of your customers.

In fact, once you buy CRM the journey analytics capability of the software not only helps to test and identify the best ways to interact with customers at specific points in their journey, but it also help influence the purchaser’s next step to attain targeted business results like an increase in renewal rates or acceptance of new offerings through up-selling and cross-selling activities.

Engage customers through chatbots and messaging apps

According to eMarketer, more than even 1.4 billion consumers use messaging apps like Whatapp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat, and this number is expected to hit more than 2 billion within the next one year and even more in the days to come.

Therefore owing to the increasing popularity of messaging apps in the modern times, chatbots will play a very critical role in boosting customer experience and developing deeper customer relationships in 2019, and so now messaging app providers are allowing businesses to use their apps to interact with customers turning them into new consumer-interaction channels for rapid business growth.

Enabled by advances in machine learning, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and NLP (Natural Language Processing) business growth technology and tools are nowadays engaging in more personalized, relevant and helpful interactions with their customers at scale, creating a new form of “conversational commerce” by which customers can now chat with company reps, find customer support, get personalized recommendations, ask questions, read reviews, and thereafter click to buy without even having the need to leave the messaging app that they prefer to use for resolving their issues.

Now among the many paybacks of the AI-driven app-based conversations is the consumer’s ability to use their preferred platform of choice and so unlike email interactions that can always become disjointed and thereby cause delays, messaging provides a seamlessly continuous thread of conversation between the customers and their brands, which not only makes these interactions more like dialogues but it also facilitates managing a tracking communications from both sides.

Therefore, now with a more natural flow of interactions between the company and its consumers, there are more scopes for cross-selling, seeking feedback and even sharing information and news with people at large in the marketplace for branding and business growth.

Gain tangible results with machine learning and AI

Even though the terms “machine” and “artificial” may apparently seem impersonal and robotic, nevertheless rapidly developing AI-based business growth technology is actually helping brands to deliver a much more personalized customer experience to an even larger customer base than it was not possible in the past.

For example, researches have proved in the recent times that this kind of personalization is leading to more engagement rates compared to traditional inventory browsing in online retail brands by pairing NLU (Natural Language Understanding) with deep learning algorithms to help customers express their requirements naturally through Facebook Messenger-based chatbots, when it is integrated in easy to use CRM software(s).

Apart from this, nowadays top-performing AI-powered chatbots can even recognize when it is the best to transfer the customer-facing interaction to live customer support reps, which makes these transfers seem natural and seamless for the customers.

Although technologies like Bot and AI are still in their early and preliminary phases, however, as bots are learning more from user-generated behaviors, they are also constantly evolving and adapting to create richer experience that predicts better results both for brands and their customers.

Merge sales and customer service mindsets to drive revenue

In the modern hypercompetitive marketplace, businesses can no longer have their sales and customer support teams operate in silos, with single-function mindsets.

This is because nowadays both support and sales teams need to recognize that to the customer, there is no difference between these two teams.

Hence, in the modern time, service and sales professionals need to see their roles as helping customers resolve problems and thereby achieve success, which may mean for sales educating customers on how they might choose the best pricing and products or services for their needs while for support reps it may imply aiding customers to find more information about additional offerings, which can result in more sales and business growth.

However, to adopt a more blended sales and service culture, organizations need to adjust their evaluation metrics and incentive plans for reach role to drive new behavior and provide training to achieve this change empowering both these teams to share information across department lines, with a common mission to improve customer experience and thereby create more sale value, customer lifetime value, retention rate and profitability.

Conclusion

Therefore the common theme in customer experience trends and business (in general) in 2019 is the requirement to eliminate silos, use business growth technology and tools and thereby maximize CLV by delivering an outstanding customer experience that can help in building a long-lasting relationship by creating cross-functional coordination for rapid business growth. 

Pest Control Marketing Ideas That Won’t Bug Your Customers

We all love a good social media marketing campaign or an eye-catching billboard. The problem is that the world is flooded with ads in one form or another, so for yours to be successful, they need to stand out.

If your pest control marketing results aren’t as game-changing as you want, it may be time to think outside the box though.

Pest Control Marketing Ideas You Haven’t Tried

Thanks to technology, you have more marketing options than ever before. Try adding these ideas to your strategy.

Revamp Your Online Reputation

Did you know 91% of people read online reviews before making purchases on a regular basis? Pest control services aren’t impulse buys either, so chances are that your customers are reading your reviews.

Do a thorough search to find your review profiles on every review site you can find. Whenever possible, claim your profiles so you can manage them. If there are major review sites like Yelp or Google that don’t have a profile for you, create one.

Now the work begins: increasing your star ratings. Respond to every review, negative or positive, to show that you’re listening. When negative reviews appear, try contacting the reviewer to make it right.

Along the way, encourage every happy customer to post a review.

Start a Referral System

When it comes to your pest control marketing, your employees and contractors aren’t the only ones on your team. Add your happy customers to your roster.

Create a referral program in which, if an existing customer refers a friend, both the new customer and the existing customer get discounts.

This helps you in two ways. First, it brings in new customers. Second, it makes your current customers more loyal because they’ll keep coming back to spend their referral discounts.

Tell every customer about your referral program and hand out cards with the details as a reminder.

Market to Relevant Professionals

Marketing to potential customers is great, but marketing to people who can refer them could be better.

Take a moment to think about all the professionals who could discover that a home or business has a pest infestation. This includes cleaning companies, home inspectors, and general contractors to name a few.

Identify these professionals in your area and start getting to know them. Tell them who you are and what you specialize in. The next time they have a customer with a pest problem, they’re more likely to refer them to you.

Keep in mind that these relationships need maintenance. Make a point to connect with your referral resources every few months. A lunch or a cup of coffee goes a long way.

Becoming the Pest Pros

Whether you’re operating in a small town or a big city, you want to become known as the go-to pest control company. If this isn’t happening with your current pest control marketing strategy, the tips above can help you break out of your rut.

For more top tips, check out more articles on our marketing blog.

Building Loyalty: Tips for Making and Maintaining Happy Customers

Keeping customers is one of the most challenging things about running a business. However, if you can improve your customer retention, you’ll save time and money. 

On average, it costs about five times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain current customers. Focusing your marketing dollars and time to build loyalty is going to pay off much better in the long run. 

How do you make happy customers that keep coming back? It starts with you and how you treat your customers in a few critical areas. 

Do What You Say

First things first: keep your promises. 

Customers can quickly sniff out a company that doesn’t honor its policies. Whatever you promise for a sale, a service, or a return, make sure you follow through exactly as promised. 

• On the one hand, you want to demonstrate that you care about your customers. Righting a wrong or working with a customer to make sure they have what they need goes a long way. 

• On the other hand, unhappy customers love to tell everyone. Your reputation is always at stake. Customer satisfaction goes a long way toward earning positive reviews and customer referrals. 

Offering a steadfast return policy is an excellent way to ensure your customers are happy. No one wants to live with a product that doesn’t work or isn’t what they expected. 

Don’t make customers work too hard to return a product. If it’s an easy process for them to communicate with you and receive a satisfactory solution, they’ll keep you in mind for future purchases. 

Consistent Communication

Customers love good communication. Whether it’s an update about tracking for an order or a heads up about special offers, providing consistent communication is part of making customers happy. 

Be Proactive

Sometimes waiting too long to reach out is enough to lose a customer. Proactive communication keeps you top of mind with customers. 

Be careful not to spam email inboxes with too many messages. Communicating too frequently is an easy way to make customers unsubscribe and shop somewhere else. 

However, don’t wait until a customer reaches out to you. Follow-up after a sale or service. Send exclusive offers to current customers. Ask for feedback instead of waiting for a customer to come back to you.

Be Responsive

When a customer reaches out to you or leaves a comment on your website or social media pages, respond promptly. Don’t wait more than 24 hours to respond to a customer message. 

Putting off a response to a complaint or failing to resolve a situation quickly turns customers off. A complaint doesn’t go away if you ignore it. Great companies respond to every legitimate issue with prompt apologies and a resolution. 

This goes for good comments, too! Acknowledge a customer who posts a positive review or sends a grateful email. 

Listen to Feedback

If you’re communicating regularly with customers, you’ll get plenty of feedback. It’s critical to listen to feedback and react in positive ways. 

You don’t have to do everything that every customer suggests. You’ll know when you’re getting useful feedback that can help the customer experience rather than people wanting changes to try and get more out of you.

With the feedback that requires action, make sure your customers feel heard. Tell them you’re considering what they have to say and you’ll get back to them. 

When customers feel heard, they feel valued!

Reward Loyalty

Customers love receiving something for nothing! They also love gifts for engaging in social media or other contests. 

Be selective and strategic when offering discounts or gifts. The right incentives or thank-you gifts at the right time can help you keep loyal customers longer. 

It’s essential to avoid creating a customer base that only purchases when there’s a discount or free offer. You don’t want customers who are solely motivated by what you give them.

However, with genuinely loyal customers and fans, a gift or reward goes a long way if it has perceived value. Rewards don’t have to be expensive. Prioritize thoughtful rewards over expensive gimmicks to keep customers. 

Consider things like an exclusive discount, free shipping for VIP customers, or special occasion gifts. Give according to the season. Branded corporate Christmas gifts for your best customers not only makes them feel special, it’s good advertising for your brand. 

Say, “Thank You”

If you can’t offer gifts, that’s okay! Start with what you can do. 

Thanking your customers might seem obvious, but it’s easy to overlook. You can get caught up in chasing sales, shipping orders, and working on other aspects of your business. You might think you thanked your customers without really doing it.

The words “thank you” go a long way toward happy customers. If you’re wondering how to keep customers in one of the simplest, more cost-effective ways, being thankful for their purchase is simple and meaningful.

They won’t know it if you don’t tell them, but it’s important to do it right. Thanking customers—personally and individually—without asking for another purchase in your thank-you message is a powerful way to engage with customers. 

Feeling appreciated helps customers come back for more. 

Be the Expert

If you sell something or provide a service, be the expert. Customers are more likely to buy from companies that know what they’re doing. 

People don’t always know what they need. When you can provide options or the solution they need, they’ll remember that you’re an expert.

Being the go-to expert can lead to more customer referrals, too.

Happy Customer Keep Coming Back!

If you’re losing customers or your business survives on one-off purchases, try focusing on what you can do to make happy customers. 

It might not be about anything you’re doing wrong. It could be a matter of what more you can do right.

The more happy customers you have, the better success you’ll have for your business. Be sure to check out some of our articles about marketing and promoting your business to build your customer base.